


Involuntary Conversion

by celli



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accounting, Gen, Taxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-19
Updated: 2007-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam learns to take his dad's advice, the accounting equation is abused, and "zapped" is a technical term. Supernaturally speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Involuntary Conversion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thestarsexist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsexist/gifts).



> Spoilers: Through the first few episodes of second season.
> 
> Thanks to [](http://rhymeswithhope.livejournal.com/profile)[**rhymeswithhope**](http://rhymeswithhope.livejournal.com/) and [](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/profile)[**slodwick**](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/) for the betas, and to [](http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/profile)[**researchgrrrl**](http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/) for doing her thing and helping me with research. An entry into the [Taxfic Challenge](http://celli.livejournal.com/707331.html). Involuntary conversion is a tax term for what happens when property is condemned or seized against its owner's will.

"Mr. Winchester! Hi! The sales report--it's done!"

Holly looked like a cat presenting its owner with a particularly juicy dead sparrow, Dean thought privately. He didn't say it, though; when you mocked the junior accountants for their enthusiasm, he had learned, they stopped going above and beyond, and inevitably you had to start doing your own work again. So he smiled, thanked her effusively, and waited until she left to demand of the stuffed alligator on his desk, "Who _likes_ doing shit like this? Seriously. That girl was wired wrong."

The gator glared cock-eyed at him. He still had bits of duct tape sticking to him from the time the AP gang had taken him hostage and hung him from the cafeteria ceiling.

"You're no help," Dean said.

***

Varken, Inc. was quietly abuzz, as usual. Dean tossed an IOU into the cash box next to the candy display and wheedled a dollar out of the receptionist for a Mt. Dew. Breakfast firmly in hand, he made his way back down the hall, stopping to pester as many people as the law allowed along the way.

His boss was waiting for him at his office door.

"Kim! Hi!" He angled his open candy towards her. "Kit Kat?"

"Work," she returned dryly.

Dean was tempted to break into the "gimme a break" song right there in the hallway, but Kim was 6'3" with the stiletto heels and, he was man enough to admit, could kick his ass. So instead he smiled brightly, took a bite, and asked indistinctly, "Work?"

"Yes, I know you've heard of it."

It was probably a good thing that he had too much chocolate in his mouth to respond.

"Before you leave today, I want all your Monday reports in my inbox."

Dean swallowed. "But it's Wednesday."

"Did you do them Monday?"

"No."

"Did you do them Tuesday?"

"No."

"Then do them today, Dean."

"Okay."

"Also, I have a new temp coming in to help with the grunt work on the fixed asset reorganization. Try not to flirt with this one."

"Kim!" Dean acquired a wounded expression. "You know I only dream of you."

"Oh, shut it." She looked over his shoulder. "Is that Mason?"

"I'm sure it is. I'll just get the copies ready for the temp," Dean said, and escaped into his office.

***

"Hey, Dean!"

"You know, I bet if I lost a hand in this thing they'd replace it," Dean said, reaching in after the fourth paper jam that morning. "It'd almost be worth it."

"You've got to meet the new temp."

"Please let this one know the alphabet _and_ have killer legs," Dean said under his breath.

"This is Dean Winchester, one of our senior accountants. And this is the new temp--" Matt paused dramatically, and Dean pretended he wasn't rolling his eyes. "--Sam Winchester."

"Seriously? Cool." Dean held out a hand. "I wonder if we're related somewhere up the line."

"Ah--yeah, maybe." Sam kept giving Dean really weird looks. Was his tie on backwards again? He tried to look down casually.

***

"So, how long have you worked here?" Sam asked as they made their way through the offices.

Dean tapped his knuckles on Caroline's cubicle wall. She jumped a foot and glared bloody murder at him, as always. "Nine, ten months? I started at the end of last summer."

"And where'd you work for before this?"

"Trying to drum up a commission for your headhunter?"

"Just wondering."

"Don't bother. Places like this are all the same. Oh!" Dean poked Sam in the ribs. "That's the CEO. Hello, Mr. Columbus!"

Columbus nodded vaguely in their direction. "Don."

"Dean. Sir." But Columbus was already past them.

Sam was looking at him. "What?" Dean snapped. "It's an easy mistake to make."

"Sorry. I was just noticing your glasses."

"What about them?"

"I don't know. You just don't seem like the type that needs glasses."

"Well, I do. Almost everyone here around does. It's totally normal." Dean felt suddenly panicked, which was ridiculous. They were just talking about his glasses.

"Right. Normal."

That's it, Dean decided. Sam was officially a little bit creepy.

They made it to his little corner of the world, and he pointed to an empty cubicle. "There's your spot, next to Holly. Holly, this is Sam Winchester. No relation. Sam, this is Holly, my favorite minion."

Holly ignored him.

"Hey, did you get the deferred rent schedule done?"

"You mean the one you just tossed at me with no explanation?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Check the server."

Dean waved Sam towards the stack of filing waiting for him and headed into his office. He closed the door behind him--usually he left it open, but Sam's desk was in his direct line of sight if he didn't, and the kid was making him twitchy--and sat down at his desk. After the requisite games of FreeCell and stuffed 'gator basketball, he opened up the deferred rent file.

The only thing in the entire spreadsheet was a note in all caps:

TOLD YOU I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

"Damn it," Dean said. "I need better minions."

***

Over the next few days, Sam (no relation) continued to give Dean a bit of a creepy vibe. And it wasn't just him. Kim stuck her head around his door and said, "I _warned_ you."

"What?"

She jerked her head back towards the outside office.

"What?" Dean asked again. Then the expression on her face registered. " _Kim!_ "

"Well? He's always lurking around you."

Dean had been rolling his eyes at just that over lunch, but he found himself saying, "It's no big deal. Mostly he asks about work stuff. I think he might want to go back to school and get a business degree."

She stared down her nose at him. "Fine. I suppose you're not the worst role model he could have. He could be following Matt around all day."

"That...wasn't really a compliment, was it?"

"Not really."

***

"Dean!"

It was the creepy temp. But he was standing next to a sweet car, so Dean decided he was worth putting up with for a couple of minutes. "Hey, Sam-no-relation!" he said, leaning over to take a closer look at the car. "This is a prime piece of machinery. '67, right?"

"Yeah. She's not mine, she's my brother's. I'm just hanging on to her for him. Hey, Dean, I need to talk to you."

Oh, crap. Weren't temps supposed to wait at least a week before begging for permanent jobs? "Sure. Come by my office first thing tomorrow."

"No, I need to talk to you now. Actually, I need you to come with me now."

Dean took two quick steps back. "Sorry, buddy, I have a thing. With some guys. Who are expecting me. So--"

Was that a gun?

Oh, _crap._

***

"So the thing is," Sam said conversationally, right hand on the wheel and left hand holding a gun that was casually pointing right at Dean, "I could show you all the pictures I want to prove my point, but you'd claim I was stalking and/or Photoshopping you."

"And what's your point, exactly?" Dean asked, trying to figure out how badly he'd die if he jumped out of the Impala.

"I can shoot you before you jump," Sam said lightly. "My point is that you're not Dean Winchester, CPA."

"I'm not Dean Winchester?"

"No. You're not a CPA."

"I have a certificate on my wall that says otherwise."

"Well, you're not." They pulled to a stop next to a cemetery, and Sam gestured Dean out of the car, careful to keep him covered at all times.

"So what am I that you want to shoot me?" Dean was pretty sure he should be afraid, and he wasn't particularly inclined toward this nutjob, but he wasn't wigging out either. Shock, he decided.

"I don't want to shoot you. I will if I have to," Sam said quickly, "but that's not the point. I just have to keep you here until you understand what I'm trying to tell you."

"Which is that I'm a fake CPA."

"Basically." Sam pulled something out of the trunk and tossed it to Dean.

"This is a gun!"

"Yes, Dean, it's a gun."

Dean looked down at the sawed-off shotgun. "What if I shoot you with this?"

Sam found that incredibly amusing for some reason. "Can't kill me. It's loaded with rock salt."

"You have got to be kidding me. Why do I have a gun loaded with--"

"Behind you!" Sam shouted, and Dean turned and cocked the gun before he even registered the words.

There was something--someone--something--coming towards him. Something weird and pale and not _right._

"Shoot it!" Sam said from behind him.

"What is it?"

"It's a ghost."

Dean started to lower the gun. "For the love of--"

It sprang at him.

Dean fired.

***

Dean sat with his back against the Impala, staring at the cemetery. He had rock salt on his pants and a bruise on his arm. And he'd just shot a ghost.

"This is not what I thought I'd be doing tonight. Just so you know."

Sam hovered over him, looking alternately concerned and relieved. "You okay?"

"Sure. Fine. Peachy." Dean squinted down the barrel of the gun. Sam, with a wince, pushed it away from him. "So I killed it, right? Or un-undeaded it? Or something?"

"Uh, kind of. Temporarily. I'll take care of--" Sam made a gesture Dean really didn't want interpreted. "I'll finish the job later."

"The job, right. Dude, what the _hell_ is going on?"

Sam was looking at him even more weirdly than usual. "Do you remember my first day, when you said we might be related?"

"Yeah. What? Oh. Oh, God." Dean stared at Sam in horror. "You think we're married, don't you? You're stalking me! Kim was right about you!" Shit, where was a convenient armed SWAT team when you needed them?

"No! Jesus! You're--we're brothers, Dean."

"Okay, okay. So you're still crazy but you don't want to--"

Sam dropped his head into his hands. "Why am I rescuing you again?"

"Rescuing me?"

"It's kind of a long story."

"That's nice," Dean said, channeling Kim's favorite tone with him. "Talk, Sam."

Sam took a deep breath and rattled it off like Dean was going to run screaming (not a bad assumption). "There was this faux-Egyptian cult who had somehow managed to call actual evil down on themselves--bad stuff, seriously, makes this ghost look like he should be taking your ticket at Disneyland--and we accidentally set some magic off."

"W-we did."

"Well, mostly you did. Obviously. I guess."

"And what did it do to me? Obviously? You guess?"

Sam gestured at Dean. "It made you think you're an accountant."

"I don't believe this. I want you to know up front I don't believe this."

A second ghost charged out of the cemetery. Sam raised his gun and fired without even really looking. The ghost vanished.

"You were saying?"

"So, it made me--like, it brainwashed me?"

"Supernaturally speaking, I guess you could say that."

"Supernaturally speaking, did I mention yet that you're crazy?"

Sam pointed at the shotgun in Dean's hand. "Says the man who just filled a ghost full of rock salt."

"I haven't ruled out that I'm crazy too." Dean shoved his glasses back into place. "Maybe I fell asleep at my desk again and I'm dreaming all this on top of my depreciation projections."

"I promise you, this is real. This is what you do."

"What? Shoot things?"

"Yeah, mostly."

"No. I'm an accountant. And I hate my job, but I'd never ditch it to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"You're not _listening_ to me. You're not an accountant. You were never an accountant. We were on a hunt--"

"For Christ's sake."

"And you got sort of--accidentally zapped into a different life."

"Zapped. Is that a technical term? And while we're on the subject, how exactly did I get zapped?"

"I told you, it was an accident."

Dean looked closer at him. "What did you do?"

***

 _"Get the candles!"_

 _"I'm_ trying _to get the candles!" Sam reached for the altar, but the room lurched to one side, and he fell hard on his right shoulder. "Damn it! If you'd stopped that guy ten seconds faster--"_

 _"Shut up and get the damn candles!"_

 _"You shut up!"_

 _A bowl fell to the floor next to him, spilling green stones across Sam's feet, and the smell of something sulfurous overwhelmed him. Sam shook his head hard, but the scent stayed there, almost visible in front of him._

 _"Sam, are you okay?"_

 _"No, I'm not okay!" An old piece of advice from his father drifted through his head--_ never say anything that can be held against you while working with spells _\--but Sam was suddenly, inexplicably pissed off. "My arm is killing me, this place smells terrible, and oh, let's not forget, I hate my life!"_

 _"What the hell are you talking about?"_

 _"I'm supposed to be in law school right now," Sam said, surprised a little at how angry he was. He'd stopped thinking about this months ago. "Not on the road, killing shit and watching people die. I told you I didn't want this."_

 _"Dude, I am not having this argument with you right now." Dean kept methodically destroying the book he'd fought the cult leader for. Hieroglyphics and variations on some kind of map lay in pieces at his feet. "I am_ working. _"_

 _"Well, your job sucks. And you suck. And just once, can't you be fricking_ normal _?"_

 _As Dean--and the rest of the contents of the room--vanished right before his eyes, Sam thought belatedly that he really should have taken his father's advice._

***

"I called everyone you, Dad, and I had ever met. I visited voodoo practitioners and mediums from here to central Mexico. I tried scrying for you."

"I don't know what that means."

"A, yes you do, and B, it's hard! And it didn't work."

"So how did you finally find me?"

Sam looked sheepish. "We have this friend who's a genius with computers. He hacked the IRS computers on a hunch. Turns out you filed a tax return."

"You found me because I filed my taxes? Now that's appropriate."

"Shut up."

***

The next day was hell. (Although Sam could probably tell him what real hell was like, not that Dean was asking.)

"Just act as--normal as you can," Sam had said. "We can't afford for you to change anything until we know for sure what the boundaries of the spell are and what kind of backlash we could face."

"Easy for you to say," Dean muttered to himself. Sam was out there, sitting at his desk pretending to research class lives for fixed assets while actually trying to track down the spell thing and its effects. Apparently this was Google-able, who knew?

Work. Accounting. Right.

But every time he tried to focus, his brain would go right back to every revelation from the night before. Brother. Shotgun. Ghosts. Magic. He dropped his glasses on the desk, wincing as his headache continued to notch up, and rubbed at his eyes.

Oh, screw this.

When Sam knocked on the door twenty minutes later, Dean was leaning back in his chair, tossing sharpened pencils up to make a perfect circle above his desk.

"I haven't found anything yet, but--hey!" Sam stage-whispered. "You're supposed to be doing what you normally do!"

"This _is_ what I normally do!" Dean said.

Sam hesitated for a second, then broke into the first real smile Dean had seen on him. "I should have known."

"Keep looking. And steal me some of Holly's pencils if you can," Dean said. "I think I can make a bulls-eye."

He still had to survive the rest of the day: reports, analysis, writing memos, reading memos, printing out memos for the sole purpose of turning them into paper airplanes. Explaining to Matt for the fourth time that no, the auditors preferred you to look up every invoice in the AP system, not just the ones that were easiest to find. And all of it to a constant background of _I don't do this. I don't live here. This isn't my life._

He took off his glasses again and winced. In his other life, he must wear contacts Sam didn't know about, because it was an instant headache without them.

Suddenly he grabbed the phone and dialed Sam's extension.

"Are there more of us?"

"More...ah...people with our jobs?"

"No. Well, yes, but no. More Winchesters. Are there more crime-fighting brothers out there? How about parents?"

There was a long pause. "No. It's just us."

Dean set the phone down gently.

***

In the spirit of behaving normally, Dean stopped by Caroline's desk on his way to the break room.

"Hey, Caro."

"Don't call me that," she said, her eyes never leaving the computer in front of her.

"Nobody gets to call you Caro?"

"People I _like_ get to call me Caro."

Dean faked a wounded look, which had no effect on her whatsoever as she still wasn't looking at him.

"So, what are you working on?" He craned his neck to read her paperwork. "Holiday Sale Blast Setups?"

"Dean?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know anything about marketing?"

"I took a class," Dean said, conveniently forgetting that according to Sam he really hadn't.

"Mm-hm. Do you know anything about email marketing--the kind with links you're allowed to click at work?"

"That was an ACCIDENT."

"I'll take that as a no, then."

"Whatever."

"So why are you talking to me?"

Dean surprised himself by not teasing her back. Instead, he said, "I might not...be in tomorrow, so I thought I'd come by and talk to you before I left."

She looked up at him, clearly surprised. "You want to _talk_ to me?"

"Yes?"

"Hm." She pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at him.

***

Over the next several days, Dean made a few discoveries:

That when Caro wasn't pissed at him, she would give him her honest (read: brutal) opinion of other people, which he found much funnier than her honest opinion of him.

That the ground in a cemetery was cold and sticky-wet, and that bones burning was not a pleasant smell, but that he didn't mind so much.

(On the other hand, though, magic shops just plain stank. Yuck.)

That for somebody who had avoided studying every day of his college education--at least, that's how he remembered it--he listened pretty well to the stuff Sam was telling him about spirits and demons and unspeakable things. Of course, spirits, demons, unspeakable things. If his classes had been in urban legends and Biblical warnings, he'd probably remember listening more there too. But still.

That work--with the exception of gossiping with Caro and pestering his minions (and maybe he had a tiny tiny thing for Kim yelling at him--she was just so _tall_ )--was a dull roar of static in his head. But sitting on his living room floor, learning (relearning) to clean and assemble all the weapons in that treasure chest of a car trunk, asking Sam every question about "hunting" he could think of while Sam made notes in an old journal--sometimes he could swear he heard Hendrix.

Of course, he could hear it a lot better without this damn headache.

"What?" he asked, blinking hard. The barrel of the rifle was slightly blurry. He wrapped both hands around it. Something on the bottom dug into his left thumb.

"Falling asleep on me?" Sam's voice was full of brotherly teasing. "I'm still trying to track down those maps I saw you shredding the night you disappeared, but it's hard to do from memory, and of course you don't remember them. Want to call it a night?"

Dean cautiously lifted one hand from the rifle and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess I am a little tired."

***

"Oh, God, no," Dean said as soon as his door opened.

Sam looked startled. "What?"

"Can we please, please skip the spellcasting and the researching and the mumbo whatever jumbo tonight?"

Sam still looked confused, except...crap, now he looked wounded. Dean put his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry--" Sam started.

"Don't do that. Don't be sorry. I know you're trying to rescue me--and you're temping while you're doing it. Which I should have known was proof we're related, because, voluntary alphabetizing? We _must_ be blood." When he looked up, Sam was looking less punched in the stomach, and Dean relaxed. "I'm just tired, okay? I had to actually work today."

"The horror."

"I know! And I have a headache. And really all I want to do is go home, drink heavily, and watch America's Next Top Model. Do you think--just this one time--we can put off my supernatural future? Please?"

Sam looked at him hard for a minute, then relaxed. "Fine. But you're buying the beer. Your job pays better than mine."

***

Dean rubbed absently at his forehead.

"Another headache?" Sam asked.

"No. Same one."

"Do you get headaches a lot?"

Dean shrugged. "I guess. Too much computer time or something. Why, don't I usually?"

"No. Of course, your computer time isn't usually spent doing math." Sam grinned at him. Dean grinned back. "Then again, it might just be your glasses."

"I need stronger ones? I've been meaning to make an eye appointment for months."

"No, you shouldn't need them at all. You've never worn glasses."

"Well, I do now--what? Stop staring at me."

"Take them off for a minute."

"What?"

"Just give them to me."

"No! It'll hurt!" Dean knew he sounded five. He couldn't help it. "Stop it."

Sam just reached out and jerked them off his face.

Dean screamed.

***

"It's the glasses!" Sam said. Dean could barely make him out from a few feet away. He couldn't breathe, it hurt so bad.

"Try--try breaking them," he managed.

"Are you sure?"

"Try it!"

But the glasses barely bent under Sam's hands, no matter how hard he tried. He threw them on the coffee table and smashed at them with his beer bottle. The world flashed silver and white around Dean, and he felt Sam grab his arm.

"Okay, this isn't working. Try putting them back on."

Dean shoved them back into place. "I can, um, see again. Still hurts like a son of a bitch, though."

"Okay. Okay. Try doing something else the spell wants you to do. Something else normal."

"Like what?"

Sam grabbed a notepad and pen from off the table. "Do something accounting."

"Are you _kidding_?"

"Dean!"

"Fine." He scribbled _assets=liabilities plus owner's equity_ on the pad--then stopped, shocked, as the pain lessened a little.

"Did it work?"

"Yeah, kind of. But you're still cracked."

"Keep going."

"Cracked," Dean said again, and wrote _to calculate gross profit margin, start with net sales..._

***

Sam forced Dean to take a sick day the next day. Dean, in turn, forced Sam to go in.

"They're tough on temps here. What good are you if you get fired?"

"You just want to imagine me slaving away while you're watching Charmed reruns."

"Yep. Bye."

He turned the TV on for form's sake, but really it was just him under the covers with painkillers and his Fundamentals of Accounting textbook, which he would reluctantly open up whenever the pain got too overwhelming.

Around noon, he was fast asleep, drooling all over payroll tax accruals, when Sam shook him awake.

"Dean! Dean!"

"What?" Dean dug himself out from under the covers. "Jeez, Sam, I was dreaming about--"

Shannen Doherty, naked, reciting the tax tables.

"--never mind. What is it?"

"Dean, remember the first time I asked you about your glasses, when you said almost everyone at work wears glasses too?"

"No, but they do."

"Correction: except for a couple of temps like me, _absolutely_ everyone at Varken wears eyeglasses."

"Wait. Nancy wears glasses?"

"Who's Nancy?"

"The receptionist."

"Yes," Sam said patiently, "Nancy wears glasses. She just hides them in her desk drawer when you're around."

"Really? That's sweet."

"Dean. Focus."

"Fine. There's a wave of myopia in my office. How does that--oh." Dean sat up, knocking his book off the bed. "You think they need glasses like I need glasses."

"Exactly. Sometimes spells like this use a physical focus to maintain their effect. A pendant, or a wedding ring. I've just never seen someone use something--"

"With so little bling?"

Sam laughed.

"Okay, so we think it's the glasses, and we think it's not just me."

"I'm pretty sure. I heard a bunch of people complaining about headaches today."

Dean thought about it. "Everybody. So my soul-sucking job really is soul-sucking?"

"Looks like."

He tried to imagine what lives Caro and Kim and Matt and Nancy had been pulled from. "Okay. So how do we break the glasses spell? Is there an evil ophthalmologist in the basement we need to take down?"

"Funny, but unlikely. I have a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A is to sneak onto the grounds, find the source of whatever's powering your glasses, and destroy it."

"Sounds like fun."

"Wait til you hear what Plan B is."

Dean cocked an eyebrow and waited.

Sam grinned. "Burn the place down."

"You are one twisted kid."

"I know."

***

Sam started waving his EMF meter around as soon as he picked the lock to the basement door. Dean, having learned his lesson about making fun of the EMF meter, stayed back and kept an eye out. The gun Sam had given him was an uncomfortable weight against the small of his back.

"Anything?" he stage-whispered.

Sam nodded and pointed towards a door marked FILE ROOM. Dean raised an eyebrow and followed him.

This door was easily unlocked, too, and Sam and Dean exchanged wary looks before creeping in. But the inside looked--like a file room.

Sam looked around. "Any suggestions?"

"You're the temp, you know their filing system better than me." Dean ignored Sam's cranky look. "What does the EMF meter say?"

Sam pointed to a row of filing cabinets no different than any other.

"Hm." Dean put one hand on the top of the cabinet. "You might be right."

"How--?"

"Because I think the top of my head's gonna come off in a minute." Dean locked his knees in place when they wobbled. "And it gets worse the closer to it I get."

"Get away from it, then!"

"It's fine. I should be able to find it pretty quick. I hope," he added under his breath. He moved along the cabinets until the pain increased to the point where it felt like a physical force against his skull. "Okay, here. It's in here." He stepped back and leaned against the wall, trying not to pant obviously from the pain, while Sam hacked at the cabinet lock with a hunting knife.

"You ever do home invasions?" Dean asked when the cabinet popped open. The manpurse Sam carried also held the lockpicks he'd used earlier, a gun, three kinds of ammunition, and some stuff Sam hadn't had time to teach Dean about yet.

Sam shrugged. "All in a day's...whatever. " He peered in the drawer. "There's an open book in here, that's all."

"Could the book be the source of it?"

"Maybe. I guess. It doesn't look like the book you destroyed before, though."

"Let me see." Not that he'd recognize the book he destroyed before anyway. But Dean inched closer. "Sam, that's a ledger book."

"What?"

"A ledger book. Back in the day, when accountants kept the books, they kept actual written-in ledger books, like this." Dean shoved his glasses up on his nose and reached in. It still hurt like holy hell, but talking about accounting, as usual, helped to hold it back a little. He laid the open book out on top of the filing cabinet.

Sam leaned in as Dean traced his finger down the page. "Does it make any sense to you?"

"See the line in black here, and the one in red under it? They look like--if they were numbers, they'd be journal entries. A debit and a credit. But they're not numbers, they're names."

"People's names. Dean, these are the people--look. See, that's Caroline's name. And Holly's."

"But why are their names in here? And what do the symbols mean?"

Sam froze. "They're not maps."

"What?"

"Remember I was trying to find the maps you were shredding when you vanished? _They weren't maps._ They were star charts."

"Star charts."

"The other symbols were hieroglyphs. These--" He jabbed a finger at the symbols next to Caroline's name. "These are symbols from Egyptian astrology."

"This is her horoscope?" Dean thought some of the pain in his head might be Sam, not his glasses.

"This is someone _changing_ her horoscope." Sam tilted the book up so he could see the cover. " _Oh._ "

Dean twisted around to see. "That looks like a squished pig to me, but I bet it means something to you."

"It's the hieroglyph for Shai, the Egyptian god of destiny."

Dean looked down at the squished pig and thought about destiny, and cults, and spells. "I really did think this was as unbelievable as it was going to get."

Sam patted him on the shoulder. "Suck it up, Dean. It only gets weirder from here."

"Can't wait," Dean muttered.

As if on cue, the door blew in.

***

Shai didn't look like a god, really. He looked like a size-and-a-half Samuel L. Jackson with slightly shinier clothes.

"Sam," Dean said under his breath.

Sam was digging through his bag.

" _Sam._ "

"I'm _working_ on it."

Dean inched back until he was flat against the filing cabinets. Shai loomed above him. "Good to know."

As Shai reached for Dean, both Sam and Dean emptied their guns into him. Shai didn't seem to have noticed.

"Plan B?" Dean called to Sam.

"Hang on!" Sam shouted back, and dove behind a set of shelves.

"Shit!" Dean started after him, but a huge hand on the back of his shirt yanked him back. "Sam!"

"I said hang on!"

Dean looked down, exasperated, at where he was clutching the edge of a filing cabinet. "I _am_!"

Shai started to turn Dean despite his struggles, and Dean's vision went red around the edges. Sam said something Dean couldn't understand, and the space behind the shelves where he was hiding suddenly glowed midday-bright.

Shai let go of Dean so quickly he met the filing cabinet chin-first. He dropped to the ground. Despite the blood filling his mouth, he twisted around to find Shai.

"Dean!" Sam scrambled around next to him.

"What'd you do? Call down the wrath of--something?"

"Pretty much."

Dean and Sam followed Shai's gaze around to the side of the shelving, which continued to glow unnaturally. A woman--a goddess, Dean corrected himself, a goddess in every sense of the word--stepped out of thin air.

"Meskhenet," Shai said. Dean didn't know much about the body language of the Egyptian god, but he thought Shai looked kind of...nervous? He raised an eyebrow in Sam's direction as they both belly-crawled towards the door.

"The goddess of destiny and fate. Shai's partner, counterpart, or wife, depending on who you're reading." Dean had to hand it to him--not many people could sound like an encyclopedia while whispering.

Dean risked a look back at the two gods, who had thankfully completely forgotten there were other people in the room and were shouting at each other. Meskhenet tended to punctuate a lot of her angrier sentences with bursts of flame, he noticed. "I vote wife."

Somewhere above their heads, the ledger book made a sound like a grenade. They both ducked even lower to the ground. Suddenly, Dean grunted and clawed at his face; he tossed his glasses a few feet away. There was another explosion from behind them, and the glasses glowed red and then just disappeared.

"Dean?" Sam whispered.

Dean dug his fingers into the side of his head. "Let's get _out_ of here."

Sam limped the rest of the way to the door on his knees and one hand, using the other to half drag Dean with him. Dean could feel his body convulsing. It was like bolts of lightning down his spinal cord.

They got through the door and Sam stashed a still-twitching Dean down the hall while he stuck his head back in. "It's like a furnace in there," he reported back as he helped Dean haul himself to his feet. "We'd better get out of here."

Somewhere above them, a fire alarm went off.

Dean took a deep breath. Most of the pain was gone. "Whatever you say, Sammy."

Sam froze mid-stride, staring back at Dean with astonishment turning to relief. Dean just grinned at him. Yet another explosion in the filing room cut off any further conversation. They headed for the stairs at a full run.

***

They tumbled out the side door just ahead of a wave of heat. Windows were exploding on the top levels of the building, while Varken employees dotted the parking lot like gophers--some curled into the fetal position, some limping away, some just standing and staring in complete bewilderment.

"Get away from the building!" Sam shouted. Dean saw Caro helping Holly up. He ran over to help her.

"What the hell is going on, Dean?" Caro asked breathlessly. There was a red line on her nose where her glasses had been. Behind her shoulder, Dean could see Matt making a panicked dash for the street.

"Tell you later. Hurry," he said, hauling Holly up against his shoulder.

"Did you do this?" she asked as she shuffled along beside them.

Dean looked over to her other side, where Sam was helping Nancy along. "Sam helped."

Sam snorted. "Thanks."

"Whatever you did, you did it a _lot_ ," she said as the brick walls of the building caught fire.

"Yeah. They're probably not going to let me stay in the office bowling league now, are they?"

"You bowled?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Shut up."

They stumbled around behind an SUV. Kim was back there, ordering people around and barking into a cell phone. Dean and Sam exchanged a look.

"I remember now!" Caro sagged against the side of the car. "I don't work here. I work in a magic shop!"

"Does anyone have a phone?" Nancy was asking faintly. "I need to call my husband."

Holly tugged on Sam's sleeve. "What year is it?"

Dean looked up at Kim. "I can't wait to find out what you really do."

"All you need to know," she said in her usual tone, "is that I was in charge, I am in charge, and I shall remain in charge. Has anyone seen Mason? MASON!" she shouted and ducked out around the car.

"I believe you," Dean told the empty air fervently.

***

Everyone sorted out pretty quickly:

Holly, a former occult tattoo artist who didn't want to go back to her old life. "Who says you have to?" Sam pointed out sensibly. "You still remember all the accounting things, right?" Holly looked at him like he was the Dalai Lama. ("Wired wrong," Dean muttered.)

Caro, who was headed back to her magic shop to take on the owner who'd whammied her for asking the wrong questions. From the look in her eye and the Latin she was mumbling under her breath, he was going to have some serious explaining to do. Dean made sure she had his phone number, just in case.

Nancy, whose hunter husband arrived just as the last of the building collapsed and swept her off in a cloud of mingled tears and curses.

Matt, who had volunteered for this gig as a sort of self-inflicted Witness Protection program, and kept looking over his shoulder as he begged bus fee off of Dean. ("Did he say gnomes?" Sam asked Dean. "I don't want to know," Dean replied.)

Kim and, apparently, Mason took care of themselves. Dean sent one last wistful look after them (she really was tall) before turning back to the Impala, the last car in the parking lot. "Hey, baby," he said to her while Sam smirked behind this shoulder. "Did this ignoramus put any scratches on you while I was gone?"

"I took perfectly good care of your car," Sam protested.

Dean snorted. "Perfectly good? I can do better than that on my worst day. Give me the keys."

Sam tossed them over.

The Impala purred under him as Dean pulled out of the driveway. A few last explosions turned the sky behind them pink.

"You ready to go back to hunting after your little vacation?" Sam asked.

Dean rolled his eyes at him. "Not only am I rested and ready, I'm even better than before."

"How so?"

"Dude. You thought I did okay with credit cards? Wait until you see what I can do with tax returns."

He cut off Sam's groan with a twist of the volume knob on the radio, and The Steve Miller Band blasted out of the speakers as they roared away.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Involuntary Conversion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/445166) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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